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Pretoria - "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius on
Tuesday testified that he panicked when he heard what he believed was a burglar
on the night he shot dead Reeva Steenkamp, as he spent a second, emotional day
on the stand in his murder trial.

Pistorius told the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria
he heard a bathroom window bang after the couple had cuddled up in bed on 13
February 2013.

"My Lady, that is the moment that everything
changed. I thought there was a burglar," the disabled Olympic athlete said
in a faltering voice.

He had woken up in the early hours of 14 February 2013
and noticed that Steenkamp was also awake.

"She rolled over to me and said 'can't you sleep my
baba'," he said.

She replied that she could not and he had gone and moved
fans and was about to place a pair of jeans over an amplifier light when he
heard what sounded like a bathroom window opening.

"I just froze. I did not know what to do. I
interpreted it as somebody climbing in," he added.

Pistorius said: "There is no barrier between me and
the bathroom."

"The first thing that ran through my mind was that I
needed to arm myself... That I needed to get my gun."

He proceeded to tell how he fetched his firearm and took
it out of its holster, adding he believed he had to protect himself and
Steenkamp, who he shot four times through a locked bathroom door in the
pre-dawn hours of Valentine's Day.

Before Pistorius began this crucial part of his
testimony, his lawyer Barry Roux asked him to remove his prosthetic legs and a
collective gasp went up from the public benches when he re-appeared in the
court room on his stumps.

Pistorius, 27, on Monday told the court he felt
vulnerable and lacked balance when he was not wearing his prosthesis, as was
the case at the time of the shooting.

He has pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder and
three unrelated firearm charges.

Alleged shooting

Questioned by Roux about the alleged incident that led to
one of those, he denied firing a shot through the open sunroof of a car on 30
September 2012.

"That never happened," he said.

State witnesses Samantha Taylor and Darren Fresco, a
former girlfriend and friend of Pistorius, both told the high court in Pretoria
that they were stunned when he fired a shot through the open sunroof of a car
while they were driving back from an outing to the Vaal River.

Pistorius also differed with witness accounts of an
incident in Tasha's restaurant in Melrose Arch, when he set off Fresco's pistol
under a table while they were having lunch.

In his version, he never explicitly asked Fresco to take
the blame, but neither did he intervene when his friend did so, glibly telling
the owner of the restaurant that the firearm had gone off when it fell out of
his pants.

Most of the morning's testimony, however, was taken up by
Roux asking Pistorius to read and explain dozens of mobile phone text messages
he exchanged with Steenkamp in the months they dated.

The messages mostly portray a caring, affectionate pair
and Pistorius told the court he was "besotted with her" and felt he
had fallen more deeply in love than she had.

The prosecution last month focused on a number of bitter
rows that played out in their electronic exchanges, notably one in which
Steenkamp complained of Pistorius's temper and said at times she felt scared of
him.

‘Insecure and
jealous’

Referring to one particular disagreement, Pistorius
conceded that he had been irritable and insecure on the day they argued but
insisted they soon resolved the issue.

"My Lady we were at an engagement party. It was a
bad day in our relationship."

The athlete told the court he saw the model speaking to a
man he did not know and felt "insecure and jealous". Pistorius said
he "wasn't kind" to her as he "should have been".

Roux asked Pistorius to read out a message Steenkamp sent
weeks before her death in which she brushed aside the arguments and said she
felt a great affinity with Pistorius.

"I know we argue from time to time, but I know we
are actually quite similar," the 29-year-old model wrote on January 2013.

Pistorius has been on the stand since Monday, when he
began his testimony with a tearful apology to Steenkamp's family and swore that
to his mind he had been trying to protect her when he blindly fired the shots
that wounded her in the hip, arm and head.

The State contends that he shot her with intent after an
argument.

Neighbours called to the stand by the State have
testified that they heard a woman scream in fear from the direction of
Pistorius's home around the time Steenkamp died.

On Monday, a retired pathologist called by the defence
testified that it was unlikely that Steenkamp had time to shout, then conceded,
depending on how rapidly Pistorius had fired, that it was possible.

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